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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026794">Patched</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity'>stateofintegrity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:28:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,309</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026794</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow "The Life You Save." Charles contemplates his mortality and his choices.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Patched</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When battalion aid had sent back his ruined hat, thinking they were doing a kindness to the surgeon who had unexpectedly cone to help them before following their wounded down to MASH 4077th and operating for three more hours, Charles shrugged off its “bad penny” nature. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the time leading up to donning that hat and heading for battalion aid, Margaret had called him “troubled.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The truth was that he had been called up to face his own mortality, to go a few steps into the dark he sought to ward off for others. Returning, he didn’t carry that darkness in his eyes or wear it around his shoulders like a cloak. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If any change came to the proud Major, it consisted of a slight air of regret. He was not old, but not young, either. If Death had come calling, who would have mourned? And at what point was bachelorhood not just confirmed but ratified, rendered irreversible? He felt he must be nearing that point. To die alone would have been terrible; to live forever that way… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He entered the Swamp with purposeful strides, trying to outpace these grim thoughts. On his bunk, the battalion aid hat had popped up again. It almost made him laugh. Was he being haunted by a </span>
  <em>
    <span>hat</span>
  </em>
  <span>? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it wasn’t exactly the same. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bullet holes have been patched over with a M*A*S*H logo cut from - well, he didn’t really know what. He didn’t recognize the stitches - he usually saw stitches </span>
  <em>
    <span>inside</span>
  </em>
  <span> of bodies - but he knew the one person in camp likeliest to wield a needle. But why? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He decided to ask. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After all, his around-camp relationships hadn’t exactly been enviable lately. He tried not to feel bitter, but if anything was off with the beloved head surgeon Pierce, everyone rushed in with possible solutions, antidotes, anecdotes. Hell, they had all treated Pierce’s sneezing fits as if they were cardiac episodes! </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But when he showed the tiniest bit of vulnerability, there’d been no one to rely upon. Margaret had called him “weird” and “bizarre” - labels that had been applied to him before. BJ had chastised him like a child. His own CO had washed his hands of him. Charles didn’t rely on anyone easily anyway… now he felt that there was no one to rely on; all the avenues had been closed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was with this new grimness in his mind - maybe there was a reason he was alone, still - that he knocked at the door of Klinger’s tent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger smiled and Winchester realized he was there literally hat in hand. “Major? You okay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t know how to answer. Charles wasn’t. He was afraid to die alone. He was afraid to die in </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> place. He felt set apart from the people with whom he’d been called to serve. He thrust the hat at him. “Why?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger wasn’t put off by this. “Heard you were kinda having a hard time, Major.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know anything else I could do. I’m real good with thread though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On any other day, Winchester would have zeroed in on the fact that he was the subject of camp gossip. “You wanted to help me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I wanted you to feel better, sure.” He looked uncertain, edgy in the face of the wild light that had entered the surgeon’s eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The light went out. It wasn’t enough. Charles knew how kind Klinger could be. This was just another instance of that. He turned to go, but Klinger’s grasp - smaller than his, but strong enough - was there at his elbow. “Why don’t you stay, sir?” There was something in Winchester’s face he didn’t like - a shadow that intended nothing good for the man on whom it fell, the eyes of which it robbed of brilliance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Klinger cleaned off the chair he usually sat in to do piecework; the idea of getting sequins on Charles usually would have made him laugh, but the Major didn’t look like he could handle humor right now. “Can I get you anything?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanted to ask why Klinger was doing this, but Margaret had already called his behavior bizarre. Some of it had been, certainly; he had basically stolen government property and turned his back on his job. Potter would have been right to reprimand him, to put him on report. “No. I require nothing, thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shook a finger at him. “That’s your problem, y’know? Say it enough and people believe you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are saying, Corporal, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> do not believe me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah. I watch you, sir. You’ve been a lot of things since you got here, but you’ve never been shaky.” He tossed a blanket over his knees. “So stay and talk to me ‘til the shaking stops.” He saw that shadow appear again and held up his hands in a sort of surrendering gesture. “Or don’t talk if you don’t wanna.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I watch you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. What was he supposed to do with that sentence? That sentiment? What was Klinger admitting? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger was watching him now- calmer than Winchester had ever seen him, as if by being so he could make the surgeon calm too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He searched for his voice. If Klinger would allow him to talk, perhaps he should. But before he could find a place to start, Klinger said, “I feel it, too, you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wh-what’s that?’ He </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>shaky. He might have been </span>
  <em>
    <span>shaking</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Being afraid to die here. It’s not just you. Everybody feels like that, Major.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not like this.” He hadn’t meant to say it, thought at first he’d said it only in his mind, but he saw Klinger’s eyes grow pained, concerned. His fingers circled around the mended spaces in the hat. A hole of the same diameter in </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> would have meant his life. Klinger had sought to cover it over, to make it whole. To make </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>whole? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger stilled the compulsively circling fingers with a touch, gripped his hand. “It didn’t happen. It’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna get out of here, Charles.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re not alone</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that touch sought to say. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ve got you.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Klinger almost never said his name. Charles squeezed his hand back, accepting the touch. “That’s it. See? You’re safe. It’s over with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Part of him feared it would never be over with. “Thank you, Max.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I hug you, sir?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart seemed to contract; what did it mean that Max needed to </span>
  <em>
    <span>ask</span>
  </em>
  <span>? But the younger man splayed his fingers on the air, palms down. “It’s okay, sir. I didn’t mean ta scare you.” He figured Winchesters probably weren’t the most cuddly crowd. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles had no idea how to say that he was as mangled by this place as his hat had been by gunfire and that Max, somehow, seemed like the one thing that might start to help put him back together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fortunately for the surgeon, Maxwell Klinger had a gift for feeling things out. He knelt before him and snuggled against him, arms going around his waist. He felt one of those long-fingered hands alight on his shoulder, catch in his soft hair. It felt better than anything had in years… maybe in decades, and the words broke against his lips like waves. “Maxwell, what is this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What matters, Major? Is it helping?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then I’ll keep doing it, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, Max.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, the tent was quiet. The stove burned down and the warmest places were the places where they touched. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next morning, Charles went back to the hospital a little more healed and a little more whole. He left the hat in Max’s tent - a promise that he would be back on the next quiet evening they had, would deliver himself into those hands that were so gifted when it came to mending things. When he woke and saw it, Max smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>End!</span>
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